Healing Chinese Herbal Soup with Black Silkie Chicken
Soup Name: Healing Chinese Herbal Soup with Black Silkie Chicken
Traditional Chinese Name: 烏雞湯 (wū jī tāng). The literal translation is “black chicken soup”. In general, this is the common name for these types of warming soups. There is this understanding that most black silkie chicken soups are warming, herbal-based, and long boiled or double-boiled. This is why a generic name works.
Nature of the soup: This soup is warming, but not too warming. There’s a scale (which I should do a post about!!). I didn’t add ginger or dong quai to keep it a little more neutral as it is summer and super hot. This is really to help my daughter replenish her blood and qi (with the red dates).
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Why Healing Chinese Herbal Soup with Black Silkie Chicken?
Khumpeerawat et al. (2021) found that black Chinese silkies have significantly higher breast muscle carnosine contents than other native breeds. Carnosine is known as a potent antioxidant, anti-fatigue, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective dipeptide.
Black silkies are also commonly used in post partum recipes during confinement. Pan et al. (2023) identified that black-bone Silkie chicken meat is rich in melanin, which has antioxidant and immune-modulating properties; melanin presence supports blood nourishment and postpartum recovery in TCM.
When paired with powerful warming ingredients, this can create a delicious and purposeful soup for the whole family. The silkie meat is used for both creating this soup and you can eat it as part of your meal.
These types of healing Chinese herbal soups with black silkie chicken are typically done as a loooooooooong boil (or double-boiled). This allows sufficient time (on a more gentle boil method) for all the ingredients to infuse together and create all that soupy goodness!
You can check out this article on “The Intensity Scale of Making Chinese Soups” on what soups are best for what type of boiling styles.
What’s involved?
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 30 mins on stove top + 3 hours in thermal pot
Total time: ~ 4 hours
Serves: 8 bowls
Ingredients
- 1 fresh black silkie chicken, chopped and cut into pieces
- 2-3 (4-inch) pieces of fresh Chinese yam, peeled
- 15 dried red dates, halved and cored
- 7 dried shiitake mushrooms (small)
- 7 dried scallops
- 15 dried wolfberries
- 4 L of water (I made extra so that I could pack some of them to freeze for another day)
Cooking Instructions
- Prepare your black silkie chicken any way you’d like, just be sure to chop it into smaller pieces so it fits into your thermal soup pot. I like to remove the wings, head, legs, and halve it – keep the skin on.
- Add enough water in a small pot to cover all the chicken. This is your blanching pot. Use cold water and set it on high heat on the stove and then add in your chicken into the cold water.
- You can also start boiling your soup water (I use 4L of water because I want leftovers!) in your thermal pot on high heat.
- Once your blanching water boils, turn off the heat and let it sit until your soup water boils.
- Once your soup water boils, add in all the ingredients, including the chicken from the blanching pot.
- Cover and boil on high heat for 30 minutes.
- At this point, turn off the heat and move the inner thermal pot into the outer thermal pot. Cover and let that sit for at least 3 hours.
- When you’re read for service, take out the inner pot from your thermal pot, reheat on the stove on high until it boils and serve and enjoy!
- Salt as needed.
CHECK OUT OTHER SIMILAR HEALING HERBAL SOUPS
Learn more about how these types of teas and soups can help improve your overall blood circulation and how you actually know that it’s working?
It’s not a perfect science (still working to perfect it), but I’d say the methodology and thinking is sound :)
Would love to hear your thoughts!
EQUIPMENT USED
To answer your questions on what equipment I’m using, I’ve built a section here where you can find and explore what I’m using to make soups. Ingredients are a little harder, but I will do my best as I source them around. However, you can always message me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and I will reply and try to point you in some direction!
You’ll see me using this star wand salt shaker for salting my blanching water. This thing is so much fun to use and I really feel like I’m making magic every time!
A MUST HAVE in the kitchen! Energy saving, cost effective, and perfect for busy chefs! Check out my article here that explains it.
Another MUST HAVE in the kitchen for soups! It’s so fine that it will scoop off the top oil and foam layer when using meats in your soup!
This silicon soup scooper is amazing! It actually molds to the shape of pot, ensuring I scoop everything out (especially stews and congee). Dishwasher safe!!
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- Start small. Start simple. Repeat.
- The ultimate Parent’s Guide to Making Chinese soups for children – learn TCM concepts, which informs soup design, and base recipes, along with an ingredient tracker.
Sources
Khumpeerawat, P. et al., 2021. Carnosine content and its association with carnosine-related gene expression in breast meat of Thai native and black-bone chicken. MDPI, 11(7), pp.428–554.
Pan, X. et al., 2023. Identification of characteristic bioactive compounds in Silkie chicken. PMC, [online]. Available at: PMC10970468.
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